In this episode, Daniel talks components; which ones matter (*hint: it’s all of them), why they matter, and why some contractors choose not to match them or tell homeowners that matching doesn’t matter.

Podcast Transcription: RoofLifeB024-181

Shayla: You are listening to the Roof Life of Oregon podcast and I’m talking today with Daniel. Daniel, why is it so important to match the life of the components to the actual roof itself? Why should homeowners be concerned with that at all?

Daniel: Homeowners really should be concerned with that. There are so many roofers that keep their costs low by adding in parts and pieces that cost much, much less. They’re really not saving themselves that much, but it’s enough to get their prices low. The problem is, let’s say you get a high-end roof and then they put parts and pieces that aren’t going to last as long. You’ve got this roof that’s supposed to go thirty, forty, fifty years, but not you have to start replacing parts in the first fifteen to twenty years.
Case and point, went to a house this week to go look at a roof in one of our areas and the roof is a presidential roof. Beautiful. This thing is going to serve her for a long time. It’s about ten years. It’s considered a fifty year roof. And so she’s going to get quite a few more years out of this thing. But it’s ten years old and she’s already starting to have issues where we have to replace. The ridge caps. They used really just junk of ridge caps. So the shingles are good, but they didn’t put the manufacturer’s ridge caps on. They used an off brand. And they’re literally falling apart on the top of the roof, so the entire run, all the way across has to be replaced. I gave her a cost for that.
And then we started talking a little bit more about the other parts and pieces. So again, the roofer put this beautiful presidential roof on, fifty-year roof. They used plastic can vents. What happens when you put a piece of plastic in the sun for ten years? I grew up in Texas. You should see what happens to a car dash in Texas, if you don’t cover the windshield. The dashes just crack out and they fall apart. That’s what happens on your roof. Everything is hotter. So if it’s eighty degrees on the ground, it’s ninety to a hundred degrees on your roof, and it just cook that plastic. And then you get these hairline cracks, and you have to replace the can vents.

Then you have pipe flashings that are rubber. They last about ten to fifteen years. You have to replace those. So all those parts and pieces, before the roof is ready to be replaced, you’re already starting to take it apart. You have choices for that. If really want can vents, put metal vents or go to ridge vent system. There are pipe flashings that will outlast your roof. Instead of doing a closed cut valley, put metal in there. So rather than going cheap, spend just a little bit more, and make sure match, or the components are better than the roof. Metal is amazing. If you can change everything out to metal, it’s going to outlast the roof. Then you don’t have to start taking things apart before you need to. All we have to do with maintenance at that point is go out, take care of the moss, and move you forward three years, rather than taking it apart again.
Shayla: You mentioned that some roofing companies will choose components that don’t match the manufacturer. Is that going to affect the warranty?

Daniel: It can. It depends on what happens with it. If you want to get a nice strong warranty, you would want to make all the parts the same. So we prefer Malarkey. We love them. We try to match all the parts and pieces with it. Their starter, their shingle, their ridge caps, their paper. Put them all together. That way, if there’s ever an issue with the roof, you don’t have the manufacturer pointing at each other saying, nope, that’s your ridge cap, nope that’s your starter, it’s your fault. It’s one company. It’s all together. We’ll see that all time where you’ll have the ridge made by this company, where they’ll use scraps for the starter. They just don’t match. They’ll use some off brand, cheap, fifteen pound felt, rather than the manufacturer’s felt paper. Have them all the same. There’s one manufacturer. If there’s ever an issue, there’s one guy to go to. And they’re designed to go together, rather than something that lasts year years, and something that lasts thirty years.
Shayla: Have you ever seen a major issues on a roof caused by someone using a cheap component, instead of using a lifetime component?

Daniel: You know, I would say the biggest problem that I see with mixing and matching are probably the ridge caps. Where the roof looks great, and this lady is feeling the exact pain, the ridge caps are falling off the entire roof and if you have a roofer that didn’t do a proper overlay on the top, once the ridge caps come off, there’s an open hole that the water runs down inside. Now the roofer’s supposed to overlap the felt paper or have a ridge vent up on top and then have it protected, so if you lost a ridge cap you still wouldn’t leak, but if the roofer didn’t do that, now you have a gaping hole with the plywood right there. And so that’s one of the biggest ones. Paper, manufacturers get around that, but that’s probably the biggest one that you see the mix of. It’s the starter and the ridge caps.

Shayla: When someone gets a bid from Roof Life for a new roof, yours might be a tad higher than another’s, because you’re actually using those quality components. Is that right?

Daniel: That’s correct, yeah. So when our re-roof guys get out there, we help you with putting on a new roof, we’ll put all the components that go with that manufacturer, and you’ll see them. So if Jerry was doing a re-roof inspect with a homeowner and he went through it, he would line item all the parts and pieces as you go down on the bid, and we’ll explain it to the homeowner what those parts and pieces are. With maintenance, we can get out there, unfortunately, after the roofer’s already done it, we’ll look at it and we’ll be able to tell you, well, your roof looks good, but your roofer did this, this or this with an off brand, and that may be an issue for you later, or it’s an issue for you now. So it works with re-roofing or with maintenance. With maintenance, we may have to tell you after the fact, but we’ll let you know if you’re having that problem. And maybe you make that choice before they go bad. Let’s go ahead and put the right one on their now, then I don’t have to deal with it as a problem later.

Shayla: Alright, so if you get your roof installed by Roof Life of Oregon, you can skip that second part and just get the right components on your roof the first time around. If you have any questions about anything Daniel talked about today, reach out to the team at Roof Life of Oregon.